The City of Windsor has announced Open Streets Windsor East End Edition will be held Sunday, September 22nd.
This is the first time Open Streets will include neighbourhoods in the city's east end after being held for years through downtown and in the west end.
Council voted last year to begin alternating the event between an east and west end route.
This year, Open Streets Windsor will transform an eight-kilometer stretch of roadway from Howard Avenue to St. Rose Avenue into a car-free zone, offering a new route to include the Olde Riverside, Pillette Village, Ford City, Ottawa, and Erie Street Business Improvement Areas.
Eight distinct hubs along the route will feature music and community partners hosting activities promoting health, physical activity, arts, and culture, letting people walk, cycle, rollerblade, and explore these hubs.
Participants can collect commemorative badges at each hub, featuring artistic renditions of Windsor's iconic landmarks.
Ward 6 councillor Jo-Anne Gignac was one of thoseadvocating for an alternating route for Open Street Windsor and calls it very exciting.
"It definitely fulfills that idea that we first had, which is to hold the event in other areas to allow people to get into neighbourhoods that perhaps they wouldn't usually go through. If they do go through it, they go through it in their car at 50- to 60 kilometers an hour," she says.
Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens says this new route will help keep the event fresh for everyone.
"We know that for an event like Open Streets, you can't have the same route every year; you have to find other ways to keep it interesting," he says. "This year's Open Streets is really the east-end edition. We found an eight-kilometer route that goes from St. Rose in the east end all the way over to Howard and sort of the central part of the city. Down Drouillard, over down Ottawa Street. So there are multiple BIAs that are included."
Click here for more information about this year's Open Streets.
Next year, the route will return to the previously approved downtown/west-side route in 2025 to include the Walkerville, Wyandotte Town Centre, Downtown, and Sandwich Business Improvement Areas.
